Essential 360 Games
 

Ok Gamingforce. Just ordered a 360 and it should arrive eventually, so I'm looking for suggestions on games to get. I've hardly touched a 360 since they came out, so just about everything is fresh to me, so go ahead and recommend older games as well as the newest ones.

Did you do the retarded thing and buy that FF13 bundle or did you smarten up and grab the slim?

And further, are you still only going to buy games than are ten bucks or less? If so you'll be stuck playing Timeshift while everyone else is partaking in Reach or something.

THIS IS WHY FPS ON CONSOLES IS TERRIBLE........

I'll get a few out of the way that I can personally recommend.

- Mass Effect
- Crackdown
- Batman: Arkham Aslyum
- Bayonetta
- BioShock

Also, this metacritic list might serve as some inspiration: Highest and Lowest Scoring Games at Metacritic

Went with the slim since I realized I already owned a 360 controller for the PC and didn't really need 3 controllers.

With all the stuff you guys have talked about the 360 I figure there's got to be some decent older games I can pick up for relatively cheap. Also, no real plans to buy Reach since, as I've said before, not a huge fan of FPS games on consoles. Any other new non-FPS games with solid multiplayer you could put me down for, though.

Dead fucking Rising

FRANK WEST HAS COVERED WARS


And Ace Combat 6 because DAT MUSIC

Ohshi, didn't realize Ace Combat 6 was on the 360. REGRETS ARE NOW GONE.

Lost Odyssey, Dead Space, Project Sylpheed, and Bionic Commando are all good games you can get on the cheap. Hell, you could even pick up Blue Dragon for $3 now. Bionic Commando especially is an amazingly fun game that's not too difficult to find for as cheap as $8.

It's a safe bet at this point that we won't be getting Tales of Vesperia for PS3 in the US, so buy that too. Then 1000 it like a madman.

Shadow Complex is another great XBLA one. I'd definitely say it's a must-grab.

Paying 3 bucks for Blue Dragon is still getting ripped off.

Getting a touch confused between Eternal Sonata and Blue Dragon, there? BD is like DQ's cousin with down's syndrome. He may be a touch retarded but he's harmless and means well.

You just gotta make sure he doesn't eat his own shirt.

There's a bunch of PC ports on the 360 if you're interested (if you haven't touched upon those yet). I'm not which ones but I'm pretty sure you had played Portal and Half-Life on PC and etc.

Red Dead Redemption is great, but you said you don't like fps? This one is more of a gta with western awesomeness. Saint's Row 2 is pretty awesome too.

Two launch titles I highly recommend:

Condemned: Criminal Origins - first person survival horror genre, but not really a shooter. Don't expect great graphics though.

Kameo - loved it, great adventure game once you get out of the first tutorial dungeon level. Skills and other nubs give me flak for it. Way ahead of PDZ and Viva.

Both probably under 10 dollars.

Do not listen to this man. Kameo is a horribly boring generic adventure game.

Condemned hasn't aged particularly well. It's an interesting direction for FPSes to take, and if you can find it for $10 or less you aren't getting ripped off, but there's better games to play.

Having also just picked up a 360 recently, I picked up Blue Dragon on the cheap without any real regret. It's simple and pretty well buried in JRPG cliche, but it's not bad, just wallows in it's unremarkableness. Also grabbed Ninja Gaiden II on the cheap, though admittedly haven't had much time to commit to it. Mostly because of priority 1 when I bought the system:

Super Street Fighter IV, which I pretty much love entirely. Hell I've put over 20 hours into it without even touching multiplayer between trials (4 out of 35 characters complete) and running through arcade with everyone (29 of 35 characters). In the same realm, also a moment 1 purchase:

Stuper Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix. HDR gives an interesting new life to Super SF2. On-line matches run very smoothly so long as both players have decent connections. The HD graphics overhaul is mostly good, though some of UDON's anatomy is kind of unsettling. Very well worth the gamer points though.

Among my other priorities I haven't yet had a chance to pick up:

Bayonetta
Blazblue Continuum Shift
Deathsmiles
Raiden IV
Raiden Fighters Aces
Tales of Vesperia
Lost Odyssey
Infinite Undiscovery

Considering on account of cheapness on Amazon ~$10

Perfect Dark
Dark Void
Bionic Commando
Velvet Assassin
Crackdown

The Dead Risings and Gears of War games may also make the cut at some point.

In the world of XBLA,

Limbo is very good, but personally I think $15 is a little steep for what you get. If it hits 800 points I'd recommend it though.

Hydro Thunder Hurricane is fun as hell.

Castlevania HoD is a bit of a let down if you're mostly a solo gamer, but I can see where it would be fun in a group.

Shadow Complex
Deathspank
Ikaruga
Earthworm Jim HD
the Q games, Rez, E4, Meteos
Worms

Are all vying for my points.

Fingers crossed for anything Cave made that either is non-region locked (Mushihimesama Futari) or that makes it to the US (hopefully Pink Sweets and Muchi Muchi Pork)

Anyways, I've forgotten/missed some stuff, but I've gone on long enough and those are the rough essentials and/or bargains for someone who has little to no interest in FPS games and their lot.

Yeah Blue Dragon is decent. Gets pretty fun past the 10 hour mark or so, if you stick with it. Many cliches for sure, but it's actually better then Lost Odyssey. The latter is definitely overrated.

I think all BZ's posts should come watermarked: "If the above has to do with media of any kind, please disregard as batshit."

If you can find Dead or Alive 4 for under $20, I'd say go for it. You can get it used for $14.99 at Gamestop, but you might be able to find it cheaper elsewhere. Definitely a good fighting game.

Assassin's Creed 1 and 2 are both good games. However, you might be able to wait on those to drop in price a little more.

Aside from that, I second the following that have already been mentioned:

Ikaruga (unless you already own it on another system)
Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2 (10x better than the already awesome original)
Batman: Arkham Aslyum (regular is $40 i believe while GOTY edition is $50)

Haven't opened my copy of Bayonetta yet, but it's still $20 at Best Buy.

So I'll say the hate people have for Blue Dragon I pretty much have for DoA4. Is it a terrible game? No, not as such, but it is probably the last fighting game I'd buy for the system. Between Super SF IV, BlazBlue, Tekken 6, Virtua Fighter 5, and even Soul Calibur IV (which is admittedly a bit weak itself) then all the awesome on XBLA like HD Remix, Samurai Shodown 2, Mark of the Wolves, KoF 98 UM, Marvel vs. Capcom 2 (if you have non tier-whoring people to mess around with, otherwise Mag, Storm, Sentinel, Cable, Psylocke blends can get tiresome super fast), even Neo Geo Battle Coliseum, all I think head and shoulders above the likes of DoA 4. At launch it may have been decent since options were few and it was pretty, but now, there's so many better choices out there if you actually like fighting games. I'd even suggest vanilla SF IV first if cost is a factor.

Well maybe it's not the last fighting game I'd consider, that's probably Samurai Shodown Sen, feh... even SamSho 6 is better than that garbage, but still it's among the last.

Halo games (yes really :))
Forza if you like cars
Batman is a great game overall
Red dead redemption; GTA in the wild west, lots of fun
Crackdown (I only have the first one but the sequel is supposed to be the same with tweaks so get that)
Moder Warfare 1&2; sp is fun and nice, multi is also fun even with all the glitches.
Gears of War games are just pure manly fun
Shadow Complex (xbla) is a great moderntake on retro metroidesque platform games.
Deathspank (xbla); Diablo with monkey island humor (same writer), incredibly fun!
Assassins creed 1; lacks a bit in gameplay (not as bad as people make it out to be, it's not that repetetive unless you do all the sidequests on purpose, the feeling and surroundings are unmatched) but the story and feeling is a+.
Assassins creed 2; Improved in every way, story is ridic good with shitton of backstory if you want to indulge yourself, they have in some way or another included every myth and historical event that ever transpired.
Fable 2 lacks in certain departments (no homo) but is fun overall :)

Don't listen to Mo0, he's an idiot. Condemned is still an awesome game to this day. I fail to see any part of it that's weak compared to more recent efforts and given that they're pretty much giving it away these days, there's no reason not to get it. Don't get the sequel though, it's fucking terrible since they decided to try and make it all modern and exciting and in the process, ruined the suspense and atmosphere.

Crackdown is pretty much essential too and a proper bargain basement effort these days.

You should definitely get Earth Defence Force 2097, especially if you have someone to play it with. The Vandal Hearts game on Live is good if you liked the originals on Playstation and I'm personally a big fan of Last Remnant although it's not to everyone's tastes. Also, given that it's one of the cheapest games out there now, there's no excuse not to get Too Human which is awesome and anyone who says otherwise is wrong.

Unfortunately, the Xbox version of Last Remnant suffers from massive slowdown, so I'd actually stick with the PC version (not to mention they added a few other fixes). Not to say that the console version isn't good, but that was the first major game, IIRC, that Squeenix used the UT3 engine on. They have since learned from their errors I believe (In b4 corrected).

Oh and if you like Metroidvanias, get Shadow Complex, should have added that to my original post.

Some sort of crime against humanity has been committed here.

It took until response 23 to recommend Mass Effect 2? Seriously?

Yeah, it's pretty much the best game on the 360. Not even a real contest, honestly.

Bioshock and sequel, Gears and sequel, Fable 2, Batman:AA, and Fallout 3 are all good too, but you owe it to yourself to buy Mass Effect 2.

In case I'm not clear: IGNORE EVERYBODY ELSE, JUST GET MASS EFFECT 2! You can skip Mass Effect 1! It's good, and if you really want to, you could make much worse choices if you insist on playing ME1 before ME2, but don't skip ME2.

Don't skip ME1 either. Despite what Skills may think, it's a great action RPG with a fascinating and well developed universe, even if not everybody liked the MAKO sections and the repeating floorplans for sidemission planets.

Big part of the appeal of Mass Effect 2 is transferring your ME1 character and seeing your choices in the first game affect some details in ME2.

It's of course possible RR has already played the games on PC, but if he hasn't, yes ME1 and 2 are essential 360 play.